


A Small Question of Identity

by qwanderer



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Leverage, Norse Mythology, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Arguments, Eliot Spencer is Fenrir, Gen, Mostly Fluff, Multi, No Plot, Vague references to torture, and there is reference to canonical character death in the middle there, but the beginning has stuff like, canon divergence between AoU and CA:CW, discussions of war and death, does not pass go, not a case fic, so idek actually, starts out serious and then goes directly to fluffville
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 04:17:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9640349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: The doorstep was still consecrated as an altar to Loki, and the beer, an offering. Eliot knocked. But there was no answer.He'd half-expected that, especially after New York.After the whispers he'd heard about who was behind the invasion, Eliot suspected the lack of an answer meant nothing good for the being who was his father.





	

**Author's Note:**

> roseapprentice gave me this title as a birthday present, it's pretty great.
> 
> plot never gets around to happening - as usual, I self-indulgently only wrote the fun part.

The doorstep of this house looked completely unremarkable, but it held meaning beyond what any human could see. The house and its front door stood on the same place where a frontier cabin had once been, and that cabin's threshold, in turn, stood in a place that was an altar consecrated to Loki. 

The man who lived in this house was two men at once. A middle-aged man, and a boy just turned eighteen. His appearance shifted, depending on the circumstances, to hide the fact that the man never aged. 

He ran a tiny shop, a hardware store now, a general store a few decades ago. A trading post before that. And it had always been him. Changing his face with the times. 

But now he was preparing to sell it, preparing to leave. And he needed help. 

His boy-self left a small bouquet of wildflowers on the doorstep, knocked, and when a voice answered, he went inside. 

"Hi, Dad," he said to Loki. "Thanks for coming." 

"Fenrir." Loki opened his arms for a hug. "I will always come when you ask, if I can. There is little that is as important to me as you." 

"I know," said Fenrir, embracing his father. "I still wanted to thank you." 

Loki held him tight, then put hands on his shoulders and pulled back to look him in the face. "Are you well?" he asked Fenrir. "You look well. But has this cycle reached his full height? Why are your identities always so small?" 

"Growing big never did much of anything for me," Fenrir answered. 

Loki's eyes darkened, knowing his meaning all too well. 

"This one," Fenrir continued, "Eliot, he's not big, but he's strong." 

"You always are," Loki said with a tiny smile. Then it turned to a frown. "You didn't answer my question. Are you well?" 

Fenrir shrugged. "Much as I ever am," he told his father. "But restless." 

"What can I do? What do you need?" 

"I want to sell the shop," Fenrir told Loki. "And I want you to help me with some illusion work. Make it look like Tom still lives here, even when I'm not around. It doesn't have to be big. Just enough so the place doesn't look abandoned." 

Loki looked surprised, and a little concerned. "You want me to create a standing illusion that your last self is still living here, while your young self is not here? Why would you need such a thing?" 

"Just show me," Fenrir said. "You know I'm shit at any magic that isn't changing my own shape." 

Loki didn't look happy about it, but he did the work. Worked spells into the walls, into the windows. And as he worked, he snuck glances at his son. 

Soon enough, it was done. 

"So this is the end of your life here?" Loki guessed. "Where will you go?" 

Fenrir shrugged a little uncomfortably. "I think I'm going to enlist." 

"No," Loki said. He crossed his arms. 

"Why not?" Fenrir asked defiantly. 

"Don't go to war, it isn't worthwhile. It's a sucking cesspit better avoided." 

Fenrir scoffed. "Oh, yeah, like you've never fought a war." 

"We're not talking about me, Fen. You're here for a reason. I need you safe." Loki's tone was firm. 

"You want me to stay in this tiny town until the end of all things?" Fen asked. "Well, you're treading a fine line between 'safe' and 'batshit insane.' If I stay here, soon I _won't_ be okay anymore." 

"You chose this place. You were happy to stay here. Out of the way of attention. Of trouble. What changed?" Loki looked confused, yes, but mostly he looked sad, and wary. 

Fen did his best to explain. 

"Dad. Yeah. For a while, I needed this. I needed safe. I needed alone. After what... my grandfather... the Aesir... did, I needed time. But I've had time. I've had hundreds of years. And I've gotten to the point where I'm more angry than hurt. I've got some frustrations to work out. Not gonna do that here." He begged the universe to help his father understand. 

Loki looked at him for a moment. Then he shook his head. "It's not worth it." 

Fen huffed. "You don't get to tell me that! After all the shit you've pulled, after every war story you've told me, you don't get to tell me that!" 

"I can't say that?" Loki raised his voice in return. "It wasn't worth it, Fen! None of it was." 

"So why did you do it?" 

"It was all I knew!" Loki yelled. "Don't make my mistakes!" 

Fen glared. "You don't understand how angry I am! I'm a wolf, I'm a monster, a maneater, all right? The Aesir made that very clear. It's not just the shape I was born in, it's how I feel! I'm meant to fight. It's what I'm for. If I stay here, I'm still gonna kill someone, but it'll be someone innocent! I _have_ to go!" 

Loki's jaw was clenched as he listened, as he processed. When he spoke again, his voice was cold. 

"Fight if you must," he said. "But _never_ pledge your loyalty to an army, to the service of a nation. They always disappoint." 

Fenrir shook his head. 

When he walked out the door, he was no longer Fenrir Lokison. He was first, and only, Eliot Spencer. 

* * *

So many things had changed. A few things hadn't. 

The doorstep was still consecrated as an altar to Loki, and the beer, an offering. Eliot knocked. But there was no answer. 

He'd half-expected that, especially after New York. 

After the whispers he'd heard about who was behind the invasion, Eliot suspected the lack of an answer meant nothing good for the being who was his father. 

* * *

Tony had been a mess, after Ultron. 

He and Pepper had been hanging by a raggedy thread, the whole Vision thing was still throwing him every time he heard his voice. He was clinging to some kind of equanimity with his fingernails. 

And then Loki had shown up, and Tony had thought, _welp, that's it, I've gone completely over the edge,_ because Thor had been pretty clear last time they'd spoken about it that his brother was dead. Really dead, this time. 

But Loki seemed real enough, and they bonded over their tolls of destruction, their loose grips on sanity, their anger with their fathers, their burdens of regret. 

And then one night they kissed, and Tony freaked the fuck out, and went to confess his sins and beg Pepper's forgiveness for the whole thing. 

Pepper had been weirdly calm. 

"You've been better, recently," she commented. "Obviously keeping a secret, but, I mean, it's been a while since you've been together enough to even pull that off. You haven't seemed this... _grounded_ since the days when Bruce and Jarvis were still around. I was prepared to find out you were seeing someone else, almost wanted to write whatever woman it was a thank-you note." She laughed a little, a bitter edge to it. "Given the influence your fling is having and how much it's like what those two did for you, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it's a man." 

Tony frowned. "Honestly, thought you'd have more to say on the whole alien-invader side of the subject," he told her. 

Pepper sighed. She brushed invisible lint off her skirt. "I never saw what Obadiah was," she said at last. "It was a complete shock to me. And then, the world went crazy and the galaxy has opened up to dump crap down on us. I get why you felt like you had to keep up with it all. But that's not me. I'm good at business, and sometimes, I'm good at keeping you in line. And that's just about all I can handle. So, you be the genius superhero. You figure out who needs fighting and who needs saving. And I'll take care of your company." 

"Pep," he said. "You know you're..." He took a breath. "I still love you," he said. "This doesn't change that." 

"I know," Pepper said. She looked speculatively at him. "And I seriously welcome the help keeping you on this side of a nervous breakdown. So I think I can handle sharing you, if he can." 

And that was the beginning of something... freaking awesome. 

* * *

When the State Department had approached Tony with the Accords, Tony had turned around and asked both his lovers for their opinions. 

Pepper frowned. "How did they get something this comprehensive through the U. N. bureaucracy without it being public knowledge? And this soon after Sokovia?" 

"Fearmongering and conspiracy," Loki answered. "They wish to blackmail you into becoming their pet hero. Do not sign, if you can avoid it." 

"Not sure if I see any good options," Tony said. "You got any ideas in particular?" 

"Not quite yet, but... I may know someone who could come up with something better." 

"'Someone,' like, someone from up there? Because, babe, you know Earth politics can be tricky to pick up. They're complicated. Arcane, even." 

Loki shook his head. "No," he said. "In fact, it's someone who's lived on Earth since before your nation was founded, and who's recently been specializing in ways of... gaming the system." 

"Cool," Tony said. "Well, get 'em in here, we'll see what they can cook up." 

Loki sighed. "I honestly don't know if he will take my call," he told Tony. "But I will give it my best. Wish me luck." 

"Why?" Tony asked. "Who's this guy to you?" 

"My son," said Loki, "if he has not completely renounced me after the way I treated him the last time we spoke." 

"Then good luck," Tony said, kissing him soundly. 

"You'll make it work," Pepper agreed, and gave Loki a peck on the lips, as well. 

* * *

When Eliot woke up to find a piece of rune-covered parchment sitting by his bedside, he frowned at it for a moment before picking it up. 

It was good to know that his dad was okay. 

Why would he be contacting Eliot now? 

He read the runes. 

_I may have a job for Leverage International, if you're up for it. Stark Tower, as soon as convenient._

Well, that was vague. 

But it was enough to make Eliot curious. And the other two would definitely appreciate the locale. 

It was time to go see what fresh hell of trouble Stark had gotten into now. And what Loki had to do with it. 

* * *

"A client meeting? in the penthouse of Stark Tower?" Hardison asked skeptically. "So this is not the kind of client we usually take on." 

"Not really," Eliot agreed. "But he's not in the black book, you told me that." 

"Doesn't mean he's good," Parker pointed out. 

"No, it don't," Eliot agreed. "We'll figure out whether we wanna take this on, together. Guys, trust me on this one. It's important." Then under his breath, he muttered, "It'd better be." 

* * *

Loki decided that, with everything he knew about Fen and his current comrades, he might do best to start off with no illusions. 

He'd been contemplating using his blue face for more dealings on Earth, and this felt like... an opportunity for a test-run. Fenrir, his darling monster, wouldn't judge. And from what he'd seen of the others when he'd looked in on Fen, they would, at least, be more curious than disgusted. 

"You sure about this?" Tony asked, as Loki paced the penthouse, FRIDAY having let them know that the expected guests were on their way up. 

"No," Loki said to him. "Not at all. But it is something that I must try." 

Fenrir strode out of the elevator ahead of the other two, eyes scanning the room. He looked well, if as angry and stubborn as ever. Next came the dark-skinned man he referred to as Hardison, eyes wide and awed. The woman - Parker - moved very little, was very practiced at not drawing attention to herself. 

Loki knew what it took to get a person to learn that, and he felt anger on her behalf, while knowing nothing about who his anger should be directed at. 

But Hardison naturally distracted, took the initiative, here. 

"Oh, wow, hey, man. You're Tony Stark." 

"I am aware of that, yes," Tony responded with a smile, one of his public ones. 

"You're the guy that built JARVIS. JARVIS is a legend on the darknet, dude. True AI, better hacker than most of us. Then, right before the Sokovia thing, he went dark." 

Tony's smile went sad, and proud, and genuine. "Died a hero," he told Hardison. 

"Oh, man. Oh, man, I'm sorry. I mean, P - Hardy isn't true AI, but she's... she's something. She's clever, she learns. She's a labor of love. And if we ever had to leave her behind on a job... that'd sting. JARVIS... he was a person, wasn't he?" 

Tony... coughed, trying to cut through all the emotion in there. "Yeah," he said. "Good friend. You build AI? Tell me about Hardy. Software only, or an integrated bot?" 

"Specialized bot," Hardison answered, his smile warm and excited as he continued. "She's got some of the most sensitive vibration detectors..." 

Tony, Loki mused, was not an easy person to get to the heart of. Unless you appealed to one of his weak spots, while simultaneously proving your intelligence was on a level sufficient to keep up with his own. 

Hardison had done it neatly. He was adept with interpersonal connections, as well as Midgard's most advanced machines. He was dangerous. 

But Fenrir trusted him, so Loki would leave them to their bonding. Tony... he needed more people who could follow his ideas in the digital realm, who would understand better what he had lost when he had lost JARVIS. 

Fen approached him then. 

"So you've thrown in your lot with the Avengers, huh?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. "You're part of a superhero team now." 

"So are you, it would seem, Fen." Loki gestured to his friends. 

Fenrir scowled. "Eliot. It's Eliot now. And a lot of people wouldn't consider us heroes." 

Loki sighed. He'd known this was going to be difficult. "The Avengers are facing a similar issue right now," he told his son. "And it occurred to me that... we could use your help. Eliot." 

"Oh, this is something you don't know best how to fix all by yourself?" 

"I am sorry. I never wanted to pull you into my life, into the kind of lives I lead, because they are chaos, more often than not. I never stopped to think that there is a reason I keep being drawn back to that." 

Eliot huffed. "Let's not talk about this now." 

"As you wish," Loki agreed. 

Parker was staring at them. She was staring at Loki openly, now. Loki approached her, studying her in turn. 

"Sneak," he concluded. 

"The best," she acknowledged. 

"On Earth," he qualified. 

She frowned. "Why are you blue?" 

"I am an alien." 

They walked around each other with casually silent footsteps, studying further. 

After a moment, she had one of his knives twirling in her fingertips. 

The next, he revealed that he had one of her lockpick sets. 

She looked incredibly offended, patting her pockets and hiding places. Finding them truly missing, she scowled, and held the knife out to him, handle first, and held the other hand open and waiting for her lockpicks. 

The exchange had drawn Tony and Hardison back from tech-space, and they were now watching with interest. 

Parker returned her lockpicks to their place, and watched Loki resheathe his knife. She tilted her head to the side and continued to study him. 

"What do you see?" he asked her. 

"You have... more than one cat in there," she answered. 

Tony snickered. "That's the prevailing theory, yeah." 

Parker frowned thoughtfully. "Weird." 

Then the elevator chimed, signaling the arrival of Pepper. 

The door opened and suddenly Parker was someone else. Even Loki almost didn't see her steal a hair tie from around Fenrir's wrist... Eliot's wrist. Her hair was tied back. Her sleek black low-heeled boots somehow spoke louder now than the rest of the skintight black she was wearing, and the voluminous lavender sweater over that had been re-settled on her shoulders to project a no-nonsense professional air. 

"Who are your friends?" Pepper asked. 

This new person held out a hand. "Hi, I'm Alice White," she introduced herself, smiling. "I keep the books for Leverage International Consulting." 

Eliot frowned at her. 

"Is this a social call, or a professional one?" Pepper asked, looking askance at Tony as if to say, _why would we need to hire external consultants?_

"A little of each," Loki answered, looking to Eliot. 

Eliot looked at Parker. "You don't trust her?" he asked. 

"She's Virginia Potts!" Parker hissed. "CEO of Stark Industries! Do you know how much power she has? How much _money?_ " She glared at Eliot. "She is exactly the kind of person we usually do crime at!" 

Pepper raised her eyebrows at the perfectly audible hissing about crime. Then she looked at the trio thoughtfully. 

"You didn't have any problem helpin' Amy out," Eliot said, "an' her dad wants her to take over the family multinational corporation." 

"That was different," Parker said. "That was Amy." 

"Well, this..." Eliot paused. "This is for my dad." 

Hardison's eyes grew wide. He looked around the room. "Eliot?" he said. "You told me your dad owned a hole-in-the-wall hardware store in the middle of nowhere, USA. If that was your idea of a cute way of saying 'Stark Industries' I am going to give you _hell_." 

Tony got a funny, paralyzed look on his face. 

"Nah, not him," Eliot said. "Listen, the hardware store thing... it's complicated. I couldn't really tell you the truth. Wasn't my secret to tell." 

"Sooo..." Hardison's eyes got impossibly larger as they fell on Loki, then back to Eliot. "The blue guy." He pointed to Loki as he hissed at Eliot. "You an alien, man? And you never said?" 

"Like I said," Eliot replied. "Wasn't my secret." 

"You know full well, Fen - Eliot - that the secrecy is for your own protection. As great as the enemies you have made on this world are, never forget that they are nothing to your enemies among the Aesir." 

"Yeah, well." Eliot looked at the excitable tech expert and the sleek, dangerous woman he'd brought with him. "I kinda trust these guys." 

"There was a time when I would have berated you for that," Loki admitted. He looked over at his own two lovers, and he could imagine how his offspring felt. "But no longer." 

Eliot gave him a knowing look, a hint of a smile that was mostly in his eyes. 

Pepper came up to Eliot then, real warmth evident in her face this time. "So you're Loki's son? It's so good to meet you. He's told us... well. Honestly, he's very protective of you. We haven't gotten much." 

"Huh," Hardison said. "So why are you not... also blue?" 

"He inherited my capability to shapeshift," Loki told him. Then he shifted back to his more habitual form, summoning his armor over his clothing. "I am Loki Laufeyson," he told them. "This is my son, Fenrir Lokison, currently going by the name Eliot Spencer." 

Hardison gaped. "So you're _that_ Loki." 

"You can shapeshift, too?" Parker asked Eliot. "Can I see? Eliot? I want to." 

Eliot's face softened at her eagerness. "Yeah, honey. Stand back a bit, though. I'm pretty big." 

In a moment, instead of the small form of Eliot Spencer, there was the huge form of the black wolf that Loki had raised, Fenrir. 

Parker was transported with glee. "Eliot-wolf is on the outside! Hi, Eliot-wolf!" She reached out to scratch her fingers through his fur. "Alec! Come help me pet our wolf! He's too big for just one of us!" 

"Uh, yeah, right," Hardison said, shaking himself out of his shock. "Girl, you afraid of horses, but not this great big fangy beast?" 

"'Course not," Parker said, like he was being stupid. "It's _Eliot._ " 

The wolf sighed, then, and laid down on the floor, head resting on his paws. He looked at Hardison, apologetic for scaring him. 

"Shit," Hardison said. "'Course not. Just took me a minute to see." He sat down cross-legged next to Eliot's head, burying his hands in the deep black fur. 

Loki liked them both. He liked them a great deal. 

"So what are the parameters on that?" Tony asked. "I was pretty sure you could only do humanoid, but that... that is not humanoid." 

"We can take any shape that is truly our own," Loki explained. "I was born Jotun. I gained my Aesir form as a babe. Fen - Eliot - was born a wolf. Each of our non-native shapes must be born, must grow, must have a true life. I have grown a handful of other forms. Most of them, yes, humanoid. Fen has grown a new human shape for every generation spent here on Midgard. He has quite a collection now. All except this one are human, and the vast majority, male." 

Hardison chuckled, and Eliot raised one great eye to peer at him. 

"No, not about that," Hardison assured, throwing a thumb over his shoulder to indicate Loki. "But, oh, man, I see that sparkle in Parker's eye. She's thinking about how versatile your grift just became." 

Eliot turned his eyes to peer at Parker. She just grinned. 

Eliot huffed, and settled back in to be petted. 

It had become a casual and comfortable meeting, and so Loki complied with that mood, settling in on the sofa and pulling Tony down beside him. 

"I have to say, I've never seen anything quite like that," Pepper said, but she seemed unperturbed, taking off her shoes and positioning herself on the couch with her toes tucked under Tony's leg. 

"He's even better than the giant stuffed bunny Hardison got me that one Christmas!" Parker said. "Sorry, Alec. But Hardy is a better green-thing-that-does-things than George the Venus Flytrap. So you're still even." 

Hardison began choking on a sudden bout of laughter. 

"What?" Parker asked. 

Hardison composed himself long enough to say, "I actually stole the bunny from them after he," he waved in Tony's direction, "had it made for her," pointing at Pepper, "and she hated it." 

"Oh, but that was the best present ever!" Parker exclaimed. 

"Really," Pepper asked with heavy skepticism in her voice. 

"She lives in a warehouse," Hardison explained. "Mostly full of climbing equipment and dry cereal. But also weird kids' toys." 

"I always wondered what you ended up doing with that thing," Pepper said, looking at Tony. "I thought you'd forget all about it. You did, didn't you." 

"Yep!" Tony said cheerfully. "Looks like it went to a good home, though." 

Eventually they'd have to talk about what they were going to do about the Accords. But not quite yet. 

Fenrir looked comfortable. And that was far too rare a state of affairs to interrupt. 


End file.
